<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'To love and be loved',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve been having a lot of strange thoughts as I come to terms with the fact that I&apos;m probably gay.
		My thought this morning was that it&apos;s a good thing I&apos;m not a gay-hater, &apos;cause then I&apos;d have to hate myself.
		Previously, I identified as asexual, and asexuals are an extremely accepting group.
		We - er, they - don&apos;t really care how you choose to express yourself, and it&apos;s not just in sexual ways, either.
		They&apos;re pretty open to different ways of life in many regards.
		At least, that&apos;s how I&apos;ve been and how I&apos;ve read other asexuals tend to be.
		It didn&apos;t matter to me if someone was gay or straight, &apos;cause either way, they weren&apos;t getting in <strong>*my*</strong> pants.
		I think one of the hardest parts of this for me is that I now have to see people differently based on something out of their control.
		If I was at least bi, I could continue thinking of males and females the same way.
		Oh well, there&apos;s nothing I can do about it.
	</p>
	<p>
		<em>Of course I wouldn&apos;t be a gay-hater though.
		I don&apos;t think I have any hatred in me.
		At least not toward people.
		I do hate the state of the world though, and how it has to be such a terrible place.</em>
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve also been crying a lot over the past few days, but also thinking about how being gay actually fits my personality pretty well.
		I mean, I should think I&apos;d be a better asexual than a homosexual, but if I&apos;ve got to be a sexual at all ...
		I think wearing makeup is ridiculous, and wouldn&apos;t want a partner that does it outside of costume play (for example, Halloween makeup isn&apos;t the same).
		Myself, I&apos;m not that assertive.
		If I was with a woman, she&apos;d likely expect me to be much more dominant than I am because that&apos;s the traitional gender role deemed masculine.
		I started working on a list of what I need in a partner to serve as a minimum standard.
		I can&apos;t expect a perfect match; I&apos;m fairly certain perfect matches don&apos;t happen very often in practice.
		I should start with as few requirements as I think I can tolerate.
		As I learn more about how I work, I can add to this.
		For starters, they&apos;ll need to be a bi or gay man.
		This should be obvious, but my mother&apos;s had problems in the past.
		Lesbians pursue my uninterested mother, and that&apos;s just mean.
		If he&apos;s not into me, I need to leave him alone.
		Second, he&apos;ll need to support the cause of free software, even if only minimally.
		Someone that doesn&apos;t understand and support this cause will never understand that which motivates me.
		Third, he&apos;ll have to be vegan.
		In all honesty, I can respect people that don&apos;t support the vegan cause, but I can&apos;t live with animal products in my home.
		Having life be practical for me means no nonvegan partners.
		I might date outside these last two requirements to learn even <strong>*how*</strong> to date, but nothing long-term is feasible if these requirements aren&apos;t met.
	</p>
	<p>
		My hand&apos;s healed enough that I can now crack the nearby knuckle without pain.
		It shouldn&apos;t be too long before it&apos;s fully healed.
	</p>
	<p>
		After finishing my coursework and several bouts of crying, I headed to Subway to get a sandwich.
		I needed some comfort food.
		It turns out Subway closed two hours before I left the apartment, but I met a coworker on the way.
		It turns out they live a few blocks from me and they&apos;re looking for friends.
		They recognised me, introduced me to their fiance, and said I should come over to play video games with them some time.
		I think I&apos;ll do it.
		I could use a friend too.
		I&apos;ll never be engrossed in their proprietary games, but I can still let them teach me how to play while we talk and hang out.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="mental">
	<h2>Mental health watch</h2>
	<p>
		My attempts to figure out my sudden-onset gayness continued.
		I had a thought, a flash, and I had an idea.
		I looked into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs">Maslow&apos;s hierarchy of needs</a> on a hunch.
		It seems it would explain a lot.
		My level zero needs have been met up to this point.
		My level one needs have not.
		At level one, a person needs to feel safe and secure.
		I&apos;ve never had that, so my level two needs, the ones involving love and understanding, never presented themselves.
		I can&apos;t be sure this is the cause, but I think I&apos;ve found my answer.
	</p>
	<p>
		Huh.
		Come to think of it, I do feel safe.
		I no longer fear my mother&apos;s presence.
		I no longer dread being at home.
		I no longer want to be at work for the sole purpose of not being at home.
		Much of the time, I don&apos;t even <strong>*want*</strong> to go to work right away!
		This is growth.
		It&apos;s insanity, but it&apos;s growth.
		That means this likely isn&apos;t reversible without a substantial drop in my quality of life.
		Such a drop wouldn&apos;t be worth it.
	</p>
	<p>
		As a young child, my parents always argued.
		It had to be my fault, right?
		Most children think that.
		If I&apos;d compensated for my parents&apos; flaws, I could keep them happy.
		If I did the things each wanted the other to do, everything would be done and they&apos;d both be happy.
		I tried to blend into the woodwork; to disappear.
		I was obviously a horrid person, after all.
		I couldn&apos;t be myself, either.
		My mother dictated what I did, pushing me into soccer, violin class, theatre class ...
		I&apos;ve never been masculine enough to enjoy sports, I never had any musical desire or talent, and theatre class was no way for me to blend in and vanish.
		My mother berated any hobby I&apos;d pick up, with I think one exception: glass work.
		Glass work was only temporary though, so when I put it down, my mother was frustrated by that too and tried to get me to pick it back up.
		There were threats to kick me out even before I left high school; potentially even befor I left middle school, though I don&apos;t recall for sure.
		My mother was never willing to accept my feelings, either claiming my feelings were invalid or sometimes even denying that I felt that way at all.
		Nothing I did was ever good enough, unless it was some meaningless task, and then it was sometimes adequate or even good or great.
		It didn&apos;t matter to me though, as it was never any of my meaningful accomplishments.
		I learned to bottle my feelings as much as possible and hide them away.
	</p>
	<p>
		... I must really be gay then.
		I was asexual because I wasn&apos;t safe.
		That means the next step is to find a partner.
		He doesn&apos;t have to be a lifelong partner, and we don&apos;t have to ever have sex.
		Just loving and feeling loved and accepted should help me immensely.
		I must be losing my lucidity, because this doesn&apos;t seem so crazy to me any more.
		I&apos;m starting to not only accept my new-found state, but feel it&apos;s necessary.
		I can&apos;t say I fully embrace it yet, but given a little time, I will.
		That part of me that&apos;s dying, likely my outer shell, says I shouldn&apos;t need to be loved.
		Want it, sure, but not need it.
		I should be strong enough not to need anyone.
		The new me says that maybe I should be stronger, but maybe I don&apos;t <strong>*have*</strong> to be.
		That&apos;s just the thing; I&apos;m in a stabler position now.
		Maybe ... it&apos;s safe to let my guard down a bit.
		Clearly I can be strong when I need to be, so maybe it&apos;s okay to be weak when I don&apos;t absolutely need to be strong.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		I finished up my discussion posts for the week:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			If the arrays are of a known depth, then no, I don&apos;t think recursion is the right tool to deal with them.
			I forgot that Java&apos;s arrays are <strong>*always*</strong> of a known depth, so in Java, I don&apos;t think recursion is the proper way to process arrays.
		</p>
		<p>
			I&apos;m glad to hear what I wrote reflects the reading material so well!
			The truth is, I posted that before I had time to start the reading.
			I&apos;ve only finished the reading just today, as I&apos;ve been dealing with some offline issues that&apos;ve been consuming my time.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			You bring up a very good point that I missed in my own initial post.
			There must be a base case that with a &quot;trivial&quot; solution.
			Specifically, that base case cannot involve further recursion.
			Otherwise, the recursion would go on forever.
		</p>
		<p>
			You also mention that sometimes, there isn&apos;t an alternative to recursion.
			This is when recursion shows its true power.
			Recursion can solve some problems that could otherwise be solved with simple loops, like your walking example, but it also solves problems not otherwise solvable.
			Also, like you said, allowing your recursive algorithm to allow cases to slip through the grate can lead to infinite &quot;loops&quot;.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			The reason recursion is implemented as a function or method is that it needs a way to refer back to itself.
			However, depending on the programming language, functions and methods aren&apos;t the only way to accomplish this.
			For example, in $a[PHP] or Lua, recursion could be implemented as a separate file to be run.
			The recursion can then be implemented as running the file from within itself.
			It&apos;s worth noting though that this is less efficient, as the file must be processed (interpreted) again every time it calls itself.
			Implementing recursion as a function or method is always a better idea, and is supported even in those languages that don&apos;t require recursion be implemented that way.
		</p>
		<p>
			I like your example of recipes that call for ingredients made using other recipes.
			That&apos;s a great example of recursion in the non-computerised world (though like you said, the ordering of the ingredients may be computerised)!
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			It&apos;s amazing how much less code is needed sometimes with recursion.
			A lot of temporary buffer variables, counter variables, and logical splits can be removed sometimes with just a little recursion.
			And that&apos;s only when recursion isn&apos;t absolutely vital.
			When is <strong>*is*</strong> vital, it solves complex problems not otherwise solvable, no matter how much code you write.
			Like you said though, recursion takes more memory.
			Each buffer variable you don&apos;t have to use results in several more internal buffer values that you&apos;re not having to keep track of individually.
			All those counters you no longer need are replaced by the call stack.
			It adds up.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
END
);
